Díaz, José

Díaz, José

Born May 3, 1895, in Seville; died Mar. 20, 1942, in Tbilisi. Figure in the Spanish and international workers’ movement. Son of a worker.

Diaz began to work while still a child; he worked for a long time as a baker. His participation in the workers’ movement began in his youth. He was one of the leaders of the Seville trade unions that belonged to the General Union of Workers. He took part in organizing the general strike in Seville in 1920. He was repeatedly imprisoned. In 1925–26 he was active in the International Organization of Proletarian Revolution. In prison he was introduced to the literature of communism, and his study of this literature determined the path he subsequently traveled in life. In 1926 he joined the Communist Party of Spain; he headed the Andalusian regional organization of the party. He was elected general secretary of the party in 1932. Under his leadership, the Communist Party of Spain was turned into a mass workers’ party, and he emerged as an initiator of the unification of all the left-wing parties in Spain in the antifascist Popular Front, which was victorious in the elections of 1936. Greatly loved by the Spanish proletariat, Diaz was elected a deputy to parliament from Madrid.

At the Seventh Congress of the Comintern (1935), Diaz was elected a member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. Between 1936 and 1939, the Communist Party of Spain, under the leadership of Diaz, was a decisive force in the National Revolutionary War of the Spanish people against the fascist rebels and Italian and German interventionists. With Diaz playing a guiding role, the Communist Party organized the illustrious Fifth Regiment, which became the nucleus of the regular People’s Army. After the defeat of the republic, despite being gravely ill, Diaz continued to lead the struggle of the Communist Party against fascism and against Spain’s involvement in World War II on the side of the powers of the fascist bloc.

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